ALBANY -- Upstate cities heavily dependent on manufacturing felt the impact of globalization far more than the Capital Region, according to a study released Wednesday by the State University of New York's Levin Institute in Manhattan.

The study, conducted by the Center for an Urban Future, examined how an increasingly globalized marketplace affected jobs, industries and population growth.

It found that the Capital Region and Rochester both fared better than the other four upstate metros it studied -- Buffalo, Syracuse, Binghamton and Utica-Rome -- in large part because of their strong academic research institutions, which they've leveraged to build their technology sectors.

"Albany-Schenectady-Troy enjoys the stabilizing economic benefits of the state capital workforce," the report said. "But the region is also building a substantial, globally competitive research and advanced manufacturing sector."

Still, no Capital Region universities are in the top rankings of schools attracting international students. New York University ranks third nationally in the number of international students enrolled, while Columbia is fifth, SUNY Buffalo 12th and Cornell 22nd.

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Manufacturing was perhaps the hardest hit sector from globalization. The report says 27,000 people were employed making turbines and generators in Schenectady for General Electric Co. in the 1970s. That number has declined significantly, although GE has added new manufacturing plants that produce digital imaging equipment for mammograms, and advanced batteries.

What remains of manufacturing here is largely export-oriented. Ninety percent of GE's Schenectady-built turbines are exported the report says, and the new GlobalFoundries plant in Malta is expected to export much of its output.

The scientific research and development services sector of the local workforce, meanwhile, has expanded to 9,185 jobs, more than twice as many as there are in the much larger Buffalo metro area.

One recent study, the report says, found 21,274 high-tech jobs in the Capital Region with an average salary of $78,000.